Topic: Fox Business Strange Inheritance: Lunar Bibles
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 42981 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 03-23-2018 04:58 PM
A legal fight over who owns hundreds of tiny bibles that landed on the moon is the subject of the 100th episode of the FOX Business Network series "Strange Inheritance" with Jamie Colby.
The episode airs Monday, March 26, at 9:30 p.m. ET. It will re-air on Wednesday and Good Friday.
It tells the story of John Stout, who as a young science whiz earned multiple degrees from Texas A&M, while also being ordained a minister. He was doing missionary work in Brazil in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik satellite. Stout manually calculated exactly where and when Sputnik would pass overhead, and photographed the spacecraft.
Stout's pictures made news and got him a job at the newly-formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration – NASA – in Houston.
"Reverend Stout was a man of cloth, but he was also a man of science," space historian Robert Pearlman tells Colby. "His official role at NASA was as senior information scientist. But he was also a chaplain and fulfilling a spiritual role."
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 42981 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 03-26-2018 03:55 PM
Fox Business Network video
"Strange Inheritance" host Jamie Colby on the legal battle over who owns hundreds of small Bibles that reached the moon.
denali414 Member
Posts: 593 From: Raleigh, NC Registered: Aug 2017
posted 03-27-2018 06:34 AM
That was great seeing you on that show last night Robert. Some good history of spaceflight. Just have some questions, hope you can answer.
Are the lunar bibles numbered? And did NASA have any official count of how many were flown on Apollo 13 and 14?
It seems Rev. Stout had a lot more made by NCR then ended up on the Apollo flights. So wondering how they determine which are the flown bibles (Apollo 13), the lunar bibles (Apollo 14) and not flown bibles? As he was suffering from dementia, it would be an innocent mistake to mix the three different types or even remember which is which. So can see how while saying "X" is a lunar bible, it may not be. How does an auction house differentiate the three types? Thanks!
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 42981 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 03-27-2018 08:21 AM
The lunar bibles were flown on Apollo 12 (1), Apollo 13 (512) and Apollo 14 (300 from the Apollo 13 flown cache); 200 remained in lunar orbit and 100 were landed on the surface) inside astronauts' personal preference kits (Alan Bean, Jim Lovell and Edgar Mitchell, respectively).
They were packaged in Beta cloth and vacuum sealed in plastic for flight, so I believe the PPK inventory would only reflect the number of packages, not the number of bibles.
Rev. Stout did have a system to keep track of the bibles and to whom they were presented. There are also several tells that distinguish unflown bibles (the NCR microfilm bible was a commercial product that was distributed beyond the Apollo Prayer League) and those that were prepared for flight and those that flew. The auction houses that specialize in space memorabilia and others know what they are, but to avoid counterfeits the details aren't widely circulated.
Incidentally, the bibles I was handling on the show were not flown, less anyone was concerned that I was doing so without gloves.
denali414 Member
Posts: 593 From: Raleigh, NC Registered: Aug 2017
posted 03-27-2018 08:46 AM
Thanks for the answers. That makes sense about the counterfeits. Is there "tells" also from the 200 that remained in orbit, from the 100 that went to the surface? As obviously there would be a huge difference in their value.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 42981 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 03-27-2018 09:20 AM
Yes, there are means to identify the two sets.
posted 03-23-2018 04:58 PM
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